1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to novel use of a small molecule isolated from Armillaria mellea, particularly, the use of armillaridin for manufacturing a medicament or a pharmaceutical composition for treating esophageal cancer by enhancing its susceptibility to a radiation therapy.
2. Description of Related Art
Radiation therapy has been used to treat cancers and other diseases. However, the dose of effective radiation must be sufficiently limited to the tumor or other target tissue to avoid injuring the surrounding tissue and the overall health of the patient.
Some efforts have been adopted to enhance the susceptibility of the tumor cells toward radiation so that lower dose of radiation may be applied. For example, it has been shown that the presence of chemotherapeutic agents within the tumor during the treatment with a radiation therapy device can somewhat improve treatment response. However, research in this regard is limited.
Therefore, there exists in the related art a need of an agent or a compound that is useful for enhancing susceptibility of a cancer toward a radiation therapy, hence such agent or compound may be used as an adjuvant of anti-cancer drugs for treating cancer, particularly, esophageal cancer.